If They Don’t Connect with Me on LinkedIn, How Do I Keep Track?

You are reaching out to connect with otherprofessionals in your networkthat meet your ideal client profile, or centers-of-influence, prospects, clients, and/or business partners. You feel as though you are doing all of the right things, like researching their LinkedIn profiles, company pages, websites, common connections, other social media platforms. You may have evenreached out to a common connection and asked for a warm introduction. Perhaps you use aCustomerRelationshipManager, perhaps you don’t.

How can you use LinkedIn to categorize these professionals,tag themto put them in lists that you can refer to later, andkeep trackon who introduced you when, and keep tabs on your activities, even set reminders to follow up? Let me show you how to use the ‘Relationship’ tab to keep track of people you meet, met, or want to meet, that have not yet connected with you directly on LinkedIn.

There are many ways to choose how to keep track of professionals that are not 1st degree connections with you on LinkedIn. Here are some of the reasons I choose:

They engage in my content, either by liking, commenting, or sharing

I met them at an event, but am not sure whether I want to add them to my network, so perhaps I will wait until they reach out to me with a connection request.

I was a speaker at an event, and received a list of attendees. I can keep track of them in the event they reach out next week, next year, or 5 years from now. Keeping track will keep me one step ahead at all times. In this instance, if they reach out months or years from now, I can refer back to the first interaction we had… everyone loves to be remembered.

They may be a potential prospect, referral partner, COI, etc., and have decided to not accept my connection request at this time. (This means I need to provide more value to the relationship in order to deserve a spot in their network!)

They follow me on LinkedIn to stay in the loop on my content and thought leadership.

There are so many reasons you may want to keep track of certain professionals. Just be sure to be purposeful in this activity. It can be time consuming to track every single person you meet if there is nothing that will ever come of it in the future.

For this example, I have chosen someone that has recently engaged in my content. I want to keep track because they are obviously interested in what I have to say, and perhaps down the road, will reach out to connect. This may also give me a reason to reach out to connect.

As you can see we are 2nd Degree Connections:

Click on the star (see above pic). This will populate a relationship tab.

Now that I have saved the corresponding information, I have the ability to view the information from Chuck’s profile at any time. I can alsosort by the tag in my connections tab. From there, I can send a connection request, remove Chuck from my contacts, tag additional tags or edit tags.

Think about how you can use these features. For example, if you tag your prospects you can sort by that tag and keep track of which connections are prospects, then make it part of your routine to go in to look at that tag weekly or bi-weekly. From there, you can enter them into your sales cycle, research common connections, determine how you can add value to the relationship, and reach out with the warmest possibilities. If you are in career transition or job search, you can use this feature to track the activity of the HR contact, Hiring Manager, Head of Departments, etc. This will give you plenty of information before your next interview.

There are so many features available on LinkedIn, I feel that is one is underutilized my most professionals. Work it into your daily routine. It’s worth the time investment!

We love sharing some of our best practices with our network. Best practices can certain help get you started, but when you are ready to implement an actual social selling process, contactmeatAll About Leveragefor more information. It’s all about the process!

Remember:

Be the first to give to your new business relationships

Always pay it forward

Network with purpose.

About Bobbie

Bobbie specializes in helping executives as well as sales & marketing teams maximize client acquisition through the intersection of face-to-face networking combined with social selling techniques. Her customized programs and processes not only help in building the right network of prospects, clients, referral partners, and centers of influence, but also provide techniques to become thought leaders in their industry and stay top of mind with their targets.